GMAT Strategy

Hey,

I guess I'm almost done preparing now. I'll just practice OG questions today and tomorrow. I've used Kaplan 800 to some extent, OG Verbal Review, Powerscore CR bible and MGMAT SC Guide. I figured I should write this debrief (well sort of) so that those who are thinking about taking the GMAT see what I've done so far and learn and those who're experienced help me interpret these. I think all the comments that I get on my preparation so far will help me on the G-Day on Monday! I'll post my final score (and alot of GMAT resources) here on this thread of course! Anybody cheering for me? Lol.

I've gotten the following scores on practice CATs:

Before much preparation (Second week of August): GMATPrep 1 - 680 (44Q, 39V)

Later,

GMATPrep 2 - 720 (47Q, 41V)

21st August - MGMAT CAT 1 - 640 (44Q, 34V)

GMATPrep 2 Reset - 740 (49Q, 41V)

REAL GMAT - 2nd September - 680 (47Q, 35V)
I wasn't fully satisfied so after much deliberation, I decided to register for 5th October. I bought the MGMAT SC Guide and Powerscore CR Bible to work on my Verbal and started practicing using OG and other resources. Got these scores in the second preparation phase:

PowerPrep CAT - 730 (49Q, 41V)

15th September - MGMAT CAT 2 - 700 (44Q, 40V)

23rd September - MGMAT CAT 3 - 680 (44Q, 38V)
I was sort of annoyed by this score so I decided to take ANOTHER CAT later the same day. a) I thought it would be a good test of my endurance and b) I really believed it could my confidence. So:

23rd September - MGMAT CAT 4 - 710 (45Q, 41V)

27th September - GMATPrep RESET - 770 (51Q, 44V)

28th September - MGMAT CAT 5 - 700 (47Q, 39V)

30th September - PowerPrep 2 - 740 (48Q, 42V)

3rd October - MGMAT CAT 6 - 740 (47Q, 45V)

To keep track of my performance on different parts of Verbal, I made a spreadsheet on Excel. I basically made a spreadsheet for every subsection (RC, CR, SC). I saved the correct answers in one column and hid it (so I don't have to keep turning pages in OG to see the correct answers). Then I created a column that shows "CORRECT" or "INCORRECT" and hid that as well. I didn't care about the timing because it is not that much of an issue for me specially on Verbal. Basically, I saved my answers in the "Chosen answer" column and at the end of every practice session, I would unhide the "CORRECT/INCORRECT" column to see how I did. I also added a "Comments" column to note down why I got that particular question wrong. This was specially useful in verbal considering the role idioms and certain rules play.

Oh yeah, I also created a sheet for "700+ Quant" in the same file. (To keep track of how I do on the 198 700+ GMATPrep questions posted by zuleron I think)

Finally, I created a spreadsheet called "Hitrates" that automatically calculated the current hitrate (across ALL the questions done in the particular subsection upto that point in time). Here are my hitrates so far:

Section Hitrate Number of Questions
OGV RC 87.01% 77
OGV CR 100.00% 21
OGV SC 98.00% 50
1000 SC 86.57% 484
700+ Quant 95.35% 43

Your comments can REALLY help me do my best on Monday. The good comments can boost my confidence and the not-so-good ones can help me improve. So its a win-win situation!

Greate go ahead, your latest Gmatprep indicates (770 one) you can score anything from 740 to 800;